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Local employer offers staff unusual perk: free beer

Royal Lantz, CFO at Advanced Medical, hands out drinks to staff at work during a recent beer cart Friday at the Port Orange business. The trend is becoming popular, following the lead of San Francicso-based companies Twitter and Yelp.

News-Journal/NIGEL COOK

FATIMA HUSSEINBUSINESS WRITER

Published: Thursday, March 7, 2013 at 12:34 p.m.

Last Modified: Thursday, March 7, 2013 at 6:38 p.m.

PORT ORANGE— While some businesses have casual Fridays where employee dress codes are relaxed, one local healthcare staffing company takes the concept of boosting worker morale a step further.

Advanced Medical in Port Orange holds "Beer Cart Fridays."

Jennifer Fuicelli, the company's chief executive, said while she knows alcohol in the workplace is a contentious issue for some, she wanted to provide an "unorthodox corporate culture" of rewarding employees for their hard work — by allowing them to crack open a cold one, on the company's tab, during work hours.

"We put our corporate culture before profits, and when you do that, profits will follow," she said, in explaining her belief that employee satisfaction increases work-product.

Advanced Medical is a provider of physical, occupational and speech therapists throughout the country.

Fuicelli said her company's corporate culture has helped build an organization that began in 2005 in Daytona Beach with four employees to a company with 350 employees today and two locations: in Port Orange and Broomfield, Colo.

"We have a very low turnover, and a very high retention rate," she said.

Fuicelli said Advanced Medical has continually grown over the years due to her management style, which isn't just serving beer when employees deserve it.

This means costume dress-up days during Halloween, barbeques on the clock, and a birthday "Get Out of Jail Free" card — i.e., a day off.

And though frowned upon by some, the concept of providing employees with free beer while on the job is common practice at some technology and social media networking companies, such as Twitter and Yelp Inc.

Fuicelli said she got the idea for "Beer Cart Fridays" from those tech companies — and that she has been doing this for her employees for two years now.

At Advanced Medical, employees are limited to one beer each Friday.

"Most people are eager to leave on a Friday, but we want to stay to keep working," said Kristie Yackovich, a senior sales recruiter at Advanced Medical, as she sipped a bottle of Blue Moon.

Economist Sean Snaith, director of the Institute for Economic Competitiveness at the University of Central Florida, said businesses serving employees beer may not be such a bad thing.

"I think it's all aimed at employer relations and keeping employees happy and therefore productive," he said, adding that it could help reduce employee turnover, which can be costly for businesses.

"There may also be a team-building element . . . you have different interactions with people when you're at a table having a beer rather than conference table," he said.

Snaith said, however, that it could pose some risks.

"There may be some safety issues, especially with manufacturers and companies that require strict safety guidelines — and there's the issue of drinking and driving."

Fuicelli said she does not allow her workers to drive while intoxicated, adding that the one bottle of beer limit is a safeguard her company has taken to prevent that from happening.

She said her main objective in holding Beer Cart Fridays is not to promote drinking, but rather to show her workers that she appreciates their efforts — something she said she did not always experience when she was an employee in Denver, Colo.

"I worked at a place that managed through fear," she said. "You can get results if employees are in fear, but it creates stress and morale sinks so low — it's not fulfilling and it's bad for business.

"You spend way too many hours at work to not enjoy it."

Robert Zicker, human resources director for the city of Port Orange said, "Although serving alcohol to employees on company premises may seem problematic, many organizations have policies and procedures in place to address such activities. These are usually unique to the organization and culture and may not be that uncommon."

He added, however, "The city of Port Orange does not allow that, but many organizations do."

In providing Beer Cart Fridays, Fuicelli said workers at Advanced Medical "feel attached to the company they're working for, and that pays huge dividends."

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